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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147293">In which the Doctor and the Master reconcile</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Udbsken/pseuds/Udbsken'>Udbsken</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:33:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,711</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147293</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Udbsken/pseuds/Udbsken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor definitely had a lot to think about after the events of The Timeless Children. Who better to think about them with than her insecure and a little genocidal best enemy?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>In which the Doctor and the Master reconcile</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Doctor wasn’t sure whether the soft snowfall helped. It had only just started - downy white flakes drifting slowly to the surface, catching on the wind, settling on tree branches and dirt and the Doctor’s hair. She’d always found snow calming, which is why she was here in the first place, but now the gentle snowflakes seemed inadequate against the avalanche of thoughts that had been flowing through her mind since Gallifrey and hadn’t ever stopped. She’d tried so many things to make it shut up: travelling, running, seeing her fam again (letting them go might have only made it worse), filling the TARDIS’ floor with random inventions. Nothing had worked. It was as loud as ever. She sighed into the wintery air.</p>
<p>There wasn’t enough snow on the ground yet to make a crunch, which is why she got no warning when a person sunk to the ground beside her. She stared at him, her breath catching in her throat involuntarily. She had been pretending for so long - to her fam, to herself - but when she saw his slightly disheveled hair, his brown puppy dog eyes staring into the falling snow, she couldn’t keep pretending anymore. She threw her arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug, uncaring that he could probably feel the quick pace of her hearts through her chest. He didn’t return the hug, but it felt so right to hold him close to her anyway that it hardly seemed to matter. </p>
<p>“You’re okay!” the Doctor said into him, unable or unwilling to conceal all the worry and joy and hope she felt for that sentence.</p>
<p>He stiffened slightly under her. When she pulled back the Master leaned towards her a little, as if trying to contain his urge to hug her just as hard in return (or perhaps that was just wishful thinking - the Doctor was slightly too dizzy to tell).</p>
<p>“You actually care?” he said, and the surprise in his voice hurt more than she’d thought it would.</p>
<p>“Of course I care.” the Doctor said. His eyes, which had been so angry the last time she’d seen him, now just seemed reproachful and wary. She wondered if he’d been telling the truth about his rage, back on Gallifrey. “You’re the Master. When have I not?” </p>
<p>“Leaving me on a planet slated for death seemed like a pretty good sign.” the Master said, causing a fresh wave of guilt to wash over her, the dam finally broken after she’d beaten it back for so long.</p>
<p>“I wish -“ she paused, unsure what she wished. That his time as Missy had stuck? That she had the capacity to give him whatever it was he so desperately needed? That they could go back to the way things were, before either of them learnt the truth about what she was? “I wish I had had the strength to take your hand. But you were always the strong one between us.”</p>
<p>The Master let out a shaky breath. “That’s not true. Besides,” he laughed without mirth, “neither of us really know what was ‘always’ the case, do we?” </p>
<p>The Doctor looked at the ground, slowly being immersed in white, her hearts constricting inside her chest. She didn’t want to think about that, but she didn’t know what else she could do. Although the unknown hurt, what was worse was the knowledge that even within the Time Lords, she was and always had been completely and utterly alone. And when she’d thought - worried - that the Master was really gone, the only person she’d ever been remotely like would also be lost to the winds of time. She’d truely be alone, on the top of that mountain. The rational part of her brain had told her that he wasn’t dead, that the Master didn’t do dead. But when she’d been staring at him, finger on that trigger, he’d seemed so willing. He’d never been like that before. It scared her, the thought that maybe this time he would just roll over and let death come. But here he was now, next to her and gloriously alive, no matter how shattered both of them were. And she had no idea how to talk to him. </p>
<p>She touched a finger to the layer of snow, drawing absentminded patterns in the fine white dust.</p>
<p>She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud, but maybe: <em>I know what my always is</em>, she told him in her head, <em>My always starts with you</em>.</p>
<p>The look he gave her was so tired, like he was too exhausted to do anything else but tell the truth anymore. <br/>“How many ‘me’s were there before I showed up? How many best friends, how many lovers, how many enemies? I’m not special to you; I’m not the start of anything. I’m just the latest in a long line.” he looked out into the wind, unblinking, like he was trying to stop the tears in his eyes from flowing down his cheek. “I was so stupid. I used to think we were the same - two outcasts from Gallifrey, two people too different from the rest of the time lords to do anything but run away. We were alone, but at least we were in each other’s orbit. But now I learn that you were never even in the same galaxy and I’m completely and utterly by myself. You’re barely even the same species.” He looked at her, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “How can you pretend that everything’s the same as it was? How can you say that I’m in any way important to making you who you are?”</p>
<p>The Doctor stared at him, trying to comprehend what he was saying. </p>
<p>“Is that really it? You burnt down Gallifrey because you didn’t think I cared enough about you?”</p>
<p>The Master dropped his eye contact. “I burnt down Gallifrey because it was built on hurting and exploiting you, idiot.” he said gruffly. </p>
<p>If the Doctor hadn’t known better, she would have thought he was embarrassed. It was oddly touching, in the kind of sickening way only someone murdering your friends because their ancestors were abusive could be. The Doctor snorted quietly, unable to help herself. The Master looked at her sharply. </p>
<p>“This isn’t funny.” he said.</p>
<p>“I know; I know it isn’t.” she said, forcing back her smile, “It’s just - you have the entire history of the time lords in your head - can’t you think of a better excuse than them hurting me?”</p>
<p>The Master slowly grinned, the first time she’d seen him properly smiling since O. “There <em>is</em> a lot of genocide in here.” </p>
<p>The Doctor laughed, and for a second everything was normal again, like all those thousands of years ago when the ground was red instead of white, and neither of them had any idea about everything that was about to come. It only took a few seconds for the illusion to fall.</p>
<p>“Listen,” the Doctor said, suddenly serious, “I don’t know anything more about my past than you do. I’ve met one of the - versions of myself who worked for the Division, and it was like -“ she struggled to find the words, “it was like she was me but she wasn’t, you know? The things that make me who I am - she didn’t have them. And I know neither of us have any way of knowing if you’re the first, but I know you’re my first. You made me who I am now as much I did for you. So don’t you dare sit there and tell me you aren’t important to me. I’ll decide that for myself, thanks. And you’re the most important thing that ever happened to me, no matter what stupid species I am.”</p>
<p>The Master stared at her, a cautious disbelief in his eyes. “But you don’t know that. And so much of me revolves around you that if you don’t know who you are then I -“</p>
<p>The Doctor rolled her eyes. “Oh shut up.”</p>
<p>She stopped him talking with a kiss. Really, she thought, it was a lot easier to stop the Master from thinking about it than it was to stop herself from doing the same. <em>Okay, shut up brain. You’re kissing the Master; that deserves your full attention.</em> It was the first time they’d kissed in these bodies, but under their new lips there was the same feeling there always was - like they fit together perfectly. The Doctor had no real idea of how she felt about the past lives she didn’t know about - most of the time she felt like she was drowning in them - but when she was kissing the Master, she knew, with more certainty than she’d had in months, that that was where she belonged. No matter how many people she had in her missing memories, it was impossible that any of them could have been like this was. </p>
<p>The Doctor pulled away first; the Master lingered, like he always did. More certainties. The Doctor smiled at him, feeling suddenly like the avalanche was slowing down.</p>
<p>“Honestly. Did you really think our childhood meant nothing to me? For a genius, you’re really goddamn stupid sometimes, you know that?”</p>
<p>Everything was definitely not fixed, but it felt a little less like she was going to drown from the weight of it all. The Master looked like he was going to say something, but a sudden flurry of snow stopped him, reminding the Doctor how cold it had become while they were sitting there.</p>
<p>“We should get inside before we get buried,” the Doctor said, looking up at the swirl of snowflakes above them quickly settling on every available surface, frosting both of them with soft white specks.</p>
<p>The Master nodded, only a little disappointed, and got to his feet. The Doctor was about to do the same when her fingers brushed against the pattern she’d been subconsciously tracing and retracing in the snow. She looked down at it, surprised to see she’d been writing in circular Gallifreyan without meaning to. It was a name, one she’d carved into trees enough times to do it without looking.</p>
<p>
  <em>Theta Sigma </em>
</p>
<p>She gave it a small smile, taking the Master’s outstretched hand and getting to her feet. So that’s who she was.</p>
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